Why 2012 election looks a lot like 1860

Dakota Voice ^ | June 4, 2011 | Star Parker

[2ndDivisionVet]

As the season of presidential politics 2012 unfolds, I’m struck by similarities between today and the tumultuous period in our history that led up to the election of Abraham Lincoln and then on to the Civil War.

So much so that I’m finding it a little eerie that this year we are observing the 150th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War.

No, I am certainly not predicting, God forbid, that today’s divisions and tensions will lead to brother taking up arms against brother.

But profound differences divide us today, as was the case in the 1850′s.

The difference in presidential approval rates between Democrats and Republicans over the course of the Obama presidency and the last few years of the Bush presidency has been in the neighborhood of 70 points. This is the most polarized the nation has been in modern times.

This deep division is driven, as was the case in the 1850′s, by fundamental differences in world-view regarding what this country is about.

Then, of course, the question was can a country “conceived in liberty’, in Lincoln’s words, tolerate slavery.

Today the question is can a country “conceived in liberty” tolerate almost half its economy consumed by government, its citizens increasingly submitting to the dictates of bureaucrats, and wanton destruction of its unborn children.

We wrestle today, as they did then, with the basic question of what defines a free society.

It’s common to hear that “democracy” is synonymous with freedom. We also commonly hear that questions regarding economic growth are separate and apart from issues tied to morality — so called “social issues.”

But Stephen Douglas, who famously debated Abraham Lincoln in 1858, argued both these points. In championing the idea of “popular sovereignty” and the Kansas Nebraska Act, he argued that it made sense for new states to determine by popular vote whether they would permit slavery.

By so doing, argued Douglas, the question of slavery would submit to what he saw as the core American institution — democracy — and, by handling the issue in this fashion, slavery could be removed as an impediment to growth of the union.

Lincoln rejected submitting slavery to the vote, arguing that there are first and inviolable principles of right and wrong on which this nation stands and which cannot be separated from any issue, including considerations of growth and expansion.

The years of the 1850′s saw the demise of a major political party — the Whigs — and the birth of another — the Republican Party. And the Democratic Party, in the election of 1860, splintered into two.

In a Gallup poll of several weeks ago, 52 percent said that neither political party adequately represents the American people and that we need a third party. Of the 52 percent, 68 percent were Independents, 52 percent Republicans, and 33 percent Democrats.

So it’s not surprising that the field of Republicans emerging as possible presidential candidates is wide, diverse, and unconventional.

But another lesson to be learned from 1860 is that conventional wisdom of establishment pundits is not necessarily reliable.

These pundits will explain why the more unconventional stated and potential candidates in the Republican field — Cain, Palin, or Bachmann — don’t have a chance and why we should expect Romney, Pawlenty, or Huntsman.

But going into the Republican Convention in Chicago in 1860, the expected candidate to grab the nomination was former governor and Senator from New York, William H. Seward.

But emerging victorious on the third ballot at the convention was a gangly country lawyer, whose only previous experience in national office was one term in the US congress, to which he was elected fourteen years earlier.

A year or two earlier, no one, except Abraham Lincoln himself, would have expected that he would become president of the United States.

[P8riot]

I’m hoping it’s more like 1980 or 1984. The left needs to be slapped down and hard.

[Jim Noble]

I thought I was like a broken record with the 1860 thing...

June 2

June 3

At least Star Parker could throw me a hat tip.

Like the Democrats of 1860, the GOP is two parties that cannot stand each other in one skin.

Again like 1860, the three-way race between radicals (Obama) and pro and anti slavery Republicans has so much potential for violence after it's over that there will inevitably be Bell-Everett "can't we all just get along" fourth party, with a goo-goo RINO at the top and some non-communist Democrat for VP.

And then...

[Jim Noble]

Would that we had a Lincoln

You mean, someone willing to kill 600 000 Americans and destroy 1/3 of the country to impose his will?

Unfortunately, the one who comes closest to the part played by Abraham Lincoln in our looming tragedy is Obama himself.

Perhaps FReepers living in Europe don't see debt-based money used to fuel ever-more-powerful socialism as akin to negro slavery, but it is every bit as divisive and has every bit as much potential for violence. Obama, the socialist, sees clearly that the 50 states cannot exist much longer half-slave (NY,DC,NJ,IL,MA,CA,MD) and half-free.

To quote the Lincoln you long for, "In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half [socialist] and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other."

I do believe that Obama and the forces behind him are quite prepared to use force to re-unify the nation on the core issue of the right of the government at Washington to dictate what may be done with your property, up to and including confiscation by either regulation or fiat.

So in that sense, the looming crisis of an election that the people are not ready for (not ready to choose, I mean) IS quite similar to 1860.

[Scotsman will be Free]

Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for supper.

[RKBA Democrat]

Yours is a well thought out post and well worth the read.

I respectfully disagree with your point regarding the democrats and gop. The d’s have, as you indicate, become the party of race-baiters and socialists. The gop, however, has had almost as much of a hand in the fiscal destruction of the republic as their so-called opposition.

Let us not forget that the mother of all bailouts, TARP, was initiated not under the current maladministration but under that of President Bush. This was not just the camel’s nose but the whole camel in the tent.

To use a nineteenth century analogy, we’ve got the gop taking the role of the Whigs. But unlike the Whigs of the 19th century, the gop doesn’t have the decency to fade into obscurity and allow another more effective conservative political party to take it’s place.

[FreedomPoster]

Ping.

[RKBA Democrat]

“Would that we had a Lincoln.”

No way. Would that we had a Jefferson. Or a Churchill. Or a Reagan.

Personally, I think we do have a Reagan in development. But it’s a she.

[Jim Noble]

There is no issue at play in America today which comes close to duplicating the matter of slavery which tore the Union apart a century and a half ago...Somewhere among us there is the man for the time and we desperately need him to step forward. Is it Paul Ryan? Is it Gov. Perry? Could it be Sarah Palin?

The fundamental issue of our time, as of that time, is, "who owns your labor".

I contend that, if the GOP nominates Palin or Ryan (I don't know anything about Rick Perry), that the wing that can speak of "tax expenditures" without reaching for a rifle will not support that nominee.

People who believe, like Newt Gingrich, that ANY attempt to right the ship on the basis that the material fruits of your labor do NOT belong to you by right is "radical right-wing social engineering", people who believe, like Mitt Romney, that free economic activity involving discovery, extraction, and exploitation of natural resources affects the output of the sun, people who believe, like Mitch Daniels, Haley Barbour, Karl Rove, and George Will, that cultural Marxism is ireversible - those people WILL NOT SUPPORT OUR CANDIDATE, even if we can get her (or him) nominated.

The GOP is fundamentally divided between those who believe that it is RIGHT to take your money to give to other people and those who believe it is WRONG. This is no longer a pragmatic disagreement about HOW MUCH of your money is is EFFICIENT to take, or about whether the race or gender of the looters affects the reasonableness of the confiscation.

Like the Democrats of 1860, the Republicans of 2012 will produce two candidates, because they cannot do otherwise.

[Old Badger]

Thank you nathanbedford for another well reasoned and well written post that I'm in full agreement with your conclusion.

Somewhere the right person exists and he or she had better step forward quickly or this battle will be lost.

[Vigilanteman]

These pundits will explain why the more unconventional stated and potential candidates in the Republican field — Cain, Palin, or Bachmann — don’t have a chance and why we should expect Romney, Pawlenty, or Huntsman.

Kind of lost me right there. I haven't seen Pawlenty or Huntsman even come close to Palin, or for that matter, Herman Cain, in any credible poll. Only in a RINO wet dream.

[Vigilanteman]

Andrew Johnson was a desperate political move when Lincoln actually thought he had a chance of losing the 1864 election. Hannibal Hamlin was the capable and competent selection of 1860. Hamlin actually was called to and served active duty in the Maine reserves while he was the sitting vice president.

[nathanbedford]

Jim: I am quite willing to join with you in criticizing Lincoln's methods in waging the war as unconstitutional. But I do not accept (nor do I suggest that you assert) that it was his desire that such a war be fought or that merely by his election he is somehow guilty of precipitating a war. It is my judgment that his conduct as Commander-in-Chief was not so unreasonable given the political pressures on him and the very grave threat to his vision of the Union which vision, after all, has come to be accepted throughout the land as it was decided of the field of strife.

I also believe that his postwar administration would have been far more benign and more constitutional than reconstruction proved to be. I do accept that his lifting of habeas corpus, his arresting newspaperman and Congressman was illegal. His wartime measures overall were in many respects unconstitutional. The Emancipation Proclamation was a taking of property without just compensation and therefore unconstitutional. But one would have to search deep in the cupboards of history to find a more justifiable (or perhaps better put, a less unjustifiable) illegal action by Commander-in-Chief than the freeing of slaves.

In sum, I think that Lincoln was drawn into the vortex just as everyone else was and his extra-constitutional measures, done more in desperation than in malice, can be pardoned if one accepts the primacy of maintaining the integrity of the Union. If not, then the opposite conclusion is virtually automatic. I agree with you entirely in denying any good motives to Barack Obama and I do join with you in your assessment that he would go to strong arm lengths to transform America according to his vision.

[Jim Noble]

I do not believe that Lincoln caused the war.

The cause of the war, and the cause of the division of the Democrats, and the cause of Lincoln's election, though, were all the same cause.

I do not thing the GOP can unify behind a single candidate because their division is over fundamentals.

[grey_whiskers]

Freepmail coming.

[OldMissileer]

Democracy is synonymous with MOB RULE.. yes! by mobsters.. No democracy ever existed that was democratic.. Democracy is a lie.. No democracy was ever democratic.. That's WHY?.... the U.S.. is a republic..

This point can NEVER be made enough.

Too many people have no idea there is a difference and have been brain washed by public school indoctrination to falsely believe we are a Democracy.

[Clintonfatigued]

Others have made this comparison before.

[nathanbedford]

We did not declare independence from Great Britain in order to be free of taxation but to be free of taxation without representation. We permitted the government to tax us in the Constitution and subsequently amended that. So I cannot say that we have an absolute right to retain all the fruits of our labor.

So long as we have a constitutionally defined representative system, I believe the government has a right to tax us. However the purposes to which that government puts those taxes is an entirely different issue and one which the Constitution as originally drawn intended to carefully restrict. Those restrictions in the course of history have been blown away.

Interestingly, this is the current shape of the argument before the various Courts of Appeals where the government is claiming that the mandate to buy insurance under Obama care is a tax and therefore constitutional.

I would join you in saying that it is illegitimate for the government, having taxed us, to redistribute our wealth as an end in itself. It is also probably illegitimate to tax us if the purpose is to redistribute wealth. But that has been done many times. For example, it was well known that the purpose of inheritance taxes was to destroy dynasties and even out the playing field rather than raise revenues. Moreover every exemption in the tax code is designed to subsidize behavior that the government regards to be desirable. As bad as is the taking our labor, this puts us in a Skinner box.

The problem with my approach is that I permit the camel's nose under the tent when I permit taxation and, as you point out, once the beast is in there it becomes an argument over how much or how efficient and that is an argument which conservatives ultimately are doomed to lose. Just a few articles ago there is a poll that says that 49% of Americans think it is appropriate for the government to redistribute wealth. This is a demographic battle that we are destined to lose and Obama knows it. The question is, can he shaped the world according to his liking while he has constitutional power?

[luvbach1]

Would that we had a Jefferson. Or a Churchill. Or a Reagan.

Those would do quite well too. But IMO Lincoln, with what I think were good motives, did what he did to save the union and the nation and succeeded, unlike the present usurper. I am well aware of the contrarian opinions re Lincoln on FR and elsewhere. But he doesn't have the biggest and most impressive monument in Washington for nothing.

[luvbach1]

I don’t think killing 600,000 Americans were in Lincoln’s plan. Unfortunately it, and its attendant destruction, turned out to be the cost of preserving the union. I know we have a lot of confederates on FR but I grieve for both sides.

[EternalVigilance]

There is no issue at play in America today which comes close to duplicating the matter of slavery which tore the Union apart a century and a half ago...

Right. The fact that we're butchering thousands of little babies every day in this country is far worse than the wicked, tyrannical practice of slavery.